What is Being a Good Corporate Citizen?

The Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s Workplace Project recognizes that there has always been a potential disconnect between a company’s employment policies and its other practices or products. The Workplace Project and its publications are limited in scope and focus, not to make it easier for companies to achieve a seal of approval from the LGBTQ community, but rather to design tools that have maximum impact on workplace policies. The project and its accompanying resources measure workplace practices without regard to a corporation’s business purpose. From fast food establishments to defense contractors to tobacco companies, there is ample opportunity to object to a company’s practices regardless of their treatment of LGBTQ employees.

Although the Workplace Project monitors employers’ contributions to anti-LGBTQ ballot measures and organizations whose primary mission includes anti-LGBTQ advocacy, it cannot capture a complete picture of a business’s social responsibility. Our mission is not to create an across-the-board assessment of any corporation’s actions, but we do recognize that many social justice issues beyond workplace practices for LGBTQ workers may be important to employers, employees, and consumers.

RESOURCES

Tracking political contributions

CENTER FOR RESPONSIVE POLITICS (OPENSECRETS.ORG)

Center for Responsive Politics is the nation's premier research group tracking money in U.S. politics and its effect on elections and public policy. Nonpartisan, independent and nonprofit, the organization aims to create a more educated voter, an involved citizenry and a more transparent and responsive government.

Gauging Social Responsibility

CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY MAGAZINE

CRM’s annual 100 Best Corporate Citizens List is known as the world’s top corporate responsibility ranking based on publicly-available information and recognized by PR Week as one of America’s top three most-important business rankings. Data in each category is of two types: true/false or numerical. “True” counts as a positive value, “False” counts as a negative value, and “no answer” counts as neutral. Numerical values are compared with all of the companies’ other numerical answers in order to generate a ranking.

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY’S GREEN POWER PARTNERSHIP

The Green Power Partnership works with a wide variety of leading organizations — from Fortune 500 companies to local, state and federal governments, and a growing number of colleges and universities. The EPA highlights the annual green power purchases of leading organizations within the United States and across individual industry sectors though its Top Partner Rankings.